Deterministic Chaos: Proposal of an Informal Educational Activity Aimed at High School Students

Greco, Valeria; Spagnolo, Salvatore

Universal Journal of Educational Research, v4 n1 p76-80 2016

Chaos theory is not present in the Italian school curricula and textbooks in spite of being present in many topics of classical physics and in everyday life. Chaotic dynamics, in fact, are involved in phenomena easily accessible to everyone or in events experienced by most people in their lives (the dripping of a faucet which keeps people awoken at night, meteorology, traffic, population growth). But chaotic phenomena and how they work are ignored. In this paper a series of experiences related to chaos theory are proposed. These experiences can be developed both in an informal and in a formal setting, so that they can be implemented quite simply in schools or in science centres.